And Bingo was his Name-o

Why is it so darn hard to name a second baby?!?

Everyone I have talked to about naming their second child has acknowledged that for some reason it seems much harder the second time around. Regardless of gender, living up to the amazing perfection of the name chosen for first born children, is a daunting task.

We started the name game as soon as we found out I was pregnant. Hours upon hours of conversation ensued. The conversation always went something like this:

April: "I want to use a family name for the middle name."
Matt: "Agreed."
April: "I don't want to use anything too popular."
Matt: "Me neither."
April: " It needs to have a nickname."
Matt: "Uh-huh."
April: "Nothing too cutesy, too trendy, or anything with a weird spelling."
Matt: "Sounds good."
April: "Nothing gender ambiguous."
Matt: "Definitely not."
April: "It has to sound good with Lily."
Matt: "Sure."

Given this brilliant list of criteria we chose a girl's name within a few days. Originally we agreed to keep said name a secret. When we chose Lily's name we told everyone right away, which sadly we regretted. I understand that sometimes people say the wrong thing or fail to hold their tongue but on more than one occasion people were flat out rude about our choice. It is NEVER okay to tell expecting parents who have already chosen a name that you don't like it! Trust me, they are not asking for your opinion. What they are doing is telling you a piece of personal information about themselves. If I said to you, "I love my freckles" would you say to me, "I hate freckles" or construct an argument as to why I should hate freckles? Probably not.

In any case when we found out that our little girl was not a little girl, Matt was dying to tell people our girl name. There is no guarantee that we will use it, or even like it by the time we could use it, but had this little one been a girl we would have named her Penelope Katherine. (You'll never guess what happened when we told people, sigh.)*

Turns out choosing the girl's name was a breeze compared to choosing a boy's name that we both loved. There were plenty of names that we both liked, there were a few names one or the other really liked, there were some awesome suggestions (Grover and Rudolph being our personal favorites) but nothing that we both LOVED as much as Lily Victoria. A few weekends ago we were in the car on the way to Maine when the name conversation started up. For the better part of an hour we dissected and scrutinized each name on our list until there was nothing left. Sort of out of the blue my husband made a new suggestion, a name we both LOVED but had some reservations about using. It became clear (to me anyway) as we exited the highway in our hometown that we had definitely chosen our name!!

I still have a very small nagging reservation about the name but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it and will just have to wait and see how it plays out. In any case we are so thrilled to have a name for our little boy! I had an u/s on Tuesday and the tech was able to confirm that we will not be needing Penelope this time. Little boy is measuring in the 96th percentile (gulp) but despite the fact that I feel like a planetary body  these days I am actually measuring small for 30 weeks (head on over to Bump Watch for the latest pictures). My OB seemed very confident that the baby probably has long arms and legs but that weight wise he is not a huge baby.

So there you have it. An entire blog post filled with action and suspense! Ten more weeks to go!


*Side note, if you are only reading this post because you think I am going to reveal our son's name you are going to be disappointed. Admittedly, we have told a handful of people...all of whom have since taken a vow of silence.